I have to disagree with Campfire's review regarding black-and-white films being "poison" back in the '60s (and later). TV stations, especially independent ones, were desperate for film, any film, to fill up the endless hours of TV time. Most people had black & white TV sets till the late 60s. About half the films on TV in the 60s-70s were B&W. It was not until cable TV became the standard in the early '80s that the classic old films began to disappear.

This was one of a number of remakes of their own older films American International produced in color, 16mm and almost zero budget (not that the originals were exactly blockbusters). This was based on It Conquered the World, in which Peter Graves had played the John Agar role. The reason for the remakes was that television had just discovered color and most TV buyers would not even consider a movie that was in black and white. Thus cheap, shoddy, slap-dash but COLOR copies of far superior movies were salable, while the B&W originals were poison on the market.

If you like B- or C-grade science fiction movies, "Zontar" is well worth your time. True, it's talky, cheesy, and full of plot holes and unfortunate attempts at comic relief, but there's a certain odd, understated dignity to it, thanks in part to the two male leads.

Note that the colors on this copy are seriously washed out, leaving nothing but reds and browns; apparently the Retromedia/Image Entertainment DVD looks quite a bit better. Good to know that this isn't the only surviving print.

John Agar brings his belligerent acting style to this communist hysteria film. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' this ain't. While this is a terrible film, it does provide some good laughs in the form of some hilarious dialog, high school level acting and just plain goofy editing and directing.

The print from which the MPEG-4 file was derived must have been washed out with colors shifted to the red. The audio is OK.